The idea is discussed in detail in the January issue of the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues and was reported widely in the press and across the blogosphere over the holiday period. Is it so much science fantasy or might it actually work? Engineers Takayuki Toyama of company Avix, Inc., in Kanagawa, Japan, and Alan Stainer of Middlesex University Business School, London, UK, suggest that there is too much pessimism around concerning our ability to realistically reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels so other measures may need to be taken.

Reader Thomas Hewitt emailed his concerns about the proposal, he was worried that reflective sheeting would be expensive and intrusive and points out that diluted white latex paint can increase the reflectivity of porous surfaces, such as concrete, by ten percent. “An even better deployment [than painting desert rocks], would be to use it on manmade surfaces, in hot areas,” he says, “Locally, this could be seen as a rollback of the urban heat island effect. If done to enough surface area in high insolation areas, it might have a noticeable effect on global temperatures.”

I asked Toyama about the viability of the team’s proposals. Is it ever likely to be viable to cover such large areas of the desert with reflective sheets weighted down with sandbags? “Yes it is viable,” he says, “We are often questioned if the area we propose is too small! Of course, compared to the surface area of the earth, it is fairly small.”

But, how will such sheets be kept clean and maintained? And what will stop them being covered with dust in a desert? “The sheets would be laid in dry desert, with little rainfall, remembering that half the world’s desert area is composed of rock,” he adds, “Two known relevant examples come to mind: the NAZCA Lines in Peru have been unpaved for 1000 years and the successful covering sheets over snow in the North of Japan to reserve snow for summer skiing. Of course, the issue of maintenance work for sheets preservation needs to be investigated this would certainly provide jobs and benefit the area.”

But, couldn’t the problem be solved by every household simply painting their roofs white instead? “Roof area would be insufficient and would contribute a small percentage,” he added, “However, as a supplemental solution, it would be helpful in contributing to energy saving to cool rooms. Indeed, this is already used in flat-roofed houses of rich people in Middle and Near East. In Japan, it is seen as effective in improving family comfort but is not perceived as sufficient to tackle global problems.”

It still seems as far-fetched a macro-engineering project as subliming millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide at the bottom of the oceans. However, Toyama suggests that this is an unfair comparison. “Our concept is basically to alter the flow of heat whilst subliming relates to treating carbon dioxide stock problems itself, not a well established, suspicious and unreliable technology from the safety angle. As an overview, in management of technology terms, there must be a multi-faceted bold approach to carbon dioxide reduction or the target set of 50% by 2050 at the Touyako Summit will never be reached.”

The obvious thing to note of course, is that surface albedo changes
are
not a
complete replacement for
greenhouse gas reductionsalbedo changes are not a complete replacement for greenhouse gas reductions, adds Hewitt. “For one, the distribution of the cooling effect will never be a good match to the warming effects of greenhouse gases,” he suggests, “Secondly, we still have the serious issue of ocean acidification. The key trick (if cooling via deliberate surface albedo intervention is technically doable), will be to prevent it from being used an excuse to continue business as usual emissions.”

The team’s paper was apparently submitted in order to respond to current discussions about how a more cosmic view of Earth’s energy balance might be addressed regarding human activities. “Carbon dioxide reduction is insufficient from such a viewpoint,” Toyama adds.

Takayuki Toyama, Alan Stainer (2009). Cosmic Heat Emission concept to ’stop’ global warming International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 9 (1/2) DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2009.022093

Reflecting on Climate Change

Tweezing out leukemia spectra - US researchers have used laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy (LTRS) to help them characterize the effects of different chemical fixation procedures on the spectra of healthy cells and leukemia cells and to avoid the misinterpretation of data.

Crime and punishment - A truly interdisciplinary collaboration between biology, law and neuroscience at Vanderbilt University has used functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, to watch how the brain changes when a person thinks about crime and punishment.

Folding issues - NMR spectroscopy is helping US chemists work out shorter and simpler routes to protein-based drugs for treating a wide range of illnesses including diabetes, cancer, and hepatitis.

By Jove, it’s hot and steamy - In 2007, astronomers discovered that a scorching-hot gas planet beyond 63 light years from our solar system is steaming with water vapour, now, it seems the planet, a hot Jupiters, also suffers from high carbon dioxide levels in its atmosphere.

Opal reversal - Electrochemically oxidizing and reducing an inverse polymer-gel opal causes it to swell and shrink, which alters the wavelength of the light it diffracts brightly, from ultraviolet through the visible to the near infrared, the material could pave the way to new display and monitor technologies.

X-rayed dinobird - Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to shine intense X-ray beams on the so-called “dinobird” to reveal chemical secrets that have been hidden from view for millions of years.

Leukemia Tweezers

Happy New Year

As a chemist, I take a healthy and skeptical view of all the biochemical and physiological claims these people make for their products. I’m just worried that there are so many people who are perhaps desperate to fix their lives that they become easy prey for such marketing. Anyway, for those who feel a chemist has no place criticising their beloved remedy, I turned to a pharmaceutical expert in Sheryl Torr-Brown of the Future Trends in Health blog to provide some additional support for my argument. She has many years experience in pharmaceutical science and has no axe to grind and offers an honest appraisal of my original post and some of the comments left by Sciencebase readers.

A glance at the scientific literature covering this herb seems to be minimal and biased in the main, she told me, and as such she agrees with my argument.

“When dealing with alternative medicine,” she says, “it is not enough to be right if you want to avoid the attacks. You also have to be sensitive to the highly personal views of those who find benefit in the drug albeit most likely due to placebo effect.”

This is perhaps an important point. Yes, the placebo effect is valid, but these remedies are usually very expensive and people are often spending their hard-earned money on what amounts to sugar pills, something that should be avoided perhaps especially in the current economic climate when every penny counts.

“A major point that most of the non-scientific public do not understand is that there is no such thing as a safe drug, natural or not,” adds Torr-Brown, “The dose is the poison, as the father of modern toxicology, Paracelsus said in the fifteenth century. Anything and everything will be toxic if you have enough of it or it gets into the wrong place. Unfortunately, people are tired of Big Pharma advertising and the media frenzy around drug withdrawals.”

She points out that ‘natural’ is sounding better and better to many folks, despite the existence of natural belladonna, natural cobra venom, oh, and natural background radiation. In the age of the Internet, it is now very easy to get positive anecdotes about anything. “Basically, one can decide what one wants to believe and then go find the evidence to support it,” Torr-Brown adds, “For scientists, we look for controlled studies to prove a point, whereas the general public are happy with a personal story or two of success.”

Many people, including several of the original, negative commenters on my R rosea post, are grasping to find something that works for them. “You cannot discount [some of these views] from a human perspective, but it makes
no
sense scientificallyit makes no sense scientifically, adds Torr-Brown, “I am shocked by the number of people I know who pay huge amounts of money for the latest panacea only to give it up after a couple of months, usually due to lack of interest.”

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• Innocent children and the most vulnerable can be hurt the most
• £200m boom as demand for ‘natural’ cures soars
• Rhodiola rosea

How Alternative Medicine Fails Us

Neither the vidcheeo nor the sound quality are great…but you cannot have everything.

The organisers also ran a one-on-one interview with Sharpless

You can also watch student reaction to the Sharpless lecture

K Barry Sharpless Live

Experimental heart - a racy read set in the world of pipettors and gene splicing, a first novel by my good friend Jennifer Rohn. creator of LabLit.com who blogs on Nature Network at Mind the Gap.

Mars 3-D by Jim Bell - does what it says on the tin, super 3D images of the Red Planet with a free set of red-green spectacles, my kids were very impressed.

Exploring the Mystery of Matter - ATLAS - a gripping read of what we can expect once the LHC experiment is finally up and running.

Hubble - Imaging space and time - the most cosmic coffee table book you could ever wish for from National Geographic

The Science Book - also from NG, this mighty tome tells you “everything you need to know about the world and how it works, would make a fantastic gift for a homeschooler.

Also for review this week is yet more cosmic stuff this time on DVD: “The Universe” (they don’t for small-scale names these days, do they?) Complete season 2 of the History Television Network rroduction (five DVDs)

New Year Science Books

The Shorty Awards honour the world’s top Twitterers in a variety of categories.

Here’s what nominators have said about sciencebase so far:

“I want 2 nominate @sciencebase in #science, b/c how can u get round twitter sciencebase in this category? He’s gr8 & has wit!” - @laikas

“I nominate @sciencebase for a Shorty Award in #science because he keeps his hand on pulse of science.” - @freesci

“I nominate @sciencebase for a Shorty Award in #science because he’s informative, witty, relevant and kind.” - @Jennifer_P

Your vote would be much appreciated!

Vote for Sciencebase

Today, UK government departments BERR and Defra, in conjunction with the Devolved Administrations,
today published a Consultation Document containing draft Regulations setting out proposed systems for the collection, treatment and recycling of waste portable, industrial and automotive batteries.

Cutting heroin analysis - Analysing samples of street heroin just got easier as researchers have developed a statistical method for removing uninformative signals from their near-infra-red spectra of seized samples.

Sperm and eggs - Scientists in Sweden have determined the precise molecular structure of a protein, ZP3, essential to the interaction of the mammalian egg coat and sperm. The work could eventually lead to improved contraceptives, has implications for fertility studies, and might, in some sense, explain how new species arise.

Untangling Alzheimer molecules - Magnetic resonance spectroscopy provides new clues about how a dipeptide molecule blocks the formation of the toxic amyloid beta-peptide aggregates in the mouse brain. The discovery could put paid to the theory that amyloid beta-peptide causes Alzheimer’s disease and suggest a therapeutic lead that focus on the real culprit at an earlier stage.

Sperm, Discharge, Heroin, and Alzheimers

And, under the December physical sciences Spotlight

It’s all in the marine mix - Mixing of surface waters in the Atlantic Ocean seems to have reverted in the winter of 2007/2008 to “normal” levels for the first time in almost a decade…

Well, wooden you know? - New materials that look and behave like plastics can be produced from a renewable raw material known as liquid wood. The bioplastics promise to displace petroleum as a feedstock for certain applications…

Running with knives - Stabbing is the most common form of murder in the UK and Ireland. However, while forensic scientists understand the basics of the process…

Alchemy Under the Spotlight

Rateadrug.com hopes to do for pharma products what dooyoo and ciao do for gadgets by bringing the crowd to the debate. Patients can anonymously rate and review any of the prescription drugs they take and view other people’s experiences for free.

“All information on this site is unique, community data that is not biased by pharmaceutical or corporate objectives,” says spokesman Jack Dowd. He adds that, “The site provides patients with truly independent survey results about the risks and benefits of their medications. The more people that start using the site to rate their prescription medications (a quick 5-minute survey), the greater this resource will become.”

Using a prescription drug appropriate to your condition and your genetics can have significant, and often life-saving benefits, but with physicians particularly in the UK and a few other places emphasising how patients should help manage their own illness it is important to know what problems may arise or whether asking for a different prescription might actually be better for them.

Not all medications hit everyone in the same way, because of various factors including your SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), that affect your body’s enzyme and receptor activity. “What’s effective
and
side-effect free
for one person
might not
be the best
drug for someone elseWhat’s effective and side-effect free for one person might not be the best drug for someone else, yet most harried doctors prescribe the same drug for 90% of their patients with similar conditions - regardless of individual sensitivities,” the site’s developers say. They hope that Rateadrug will prevent the next Vioxx from happening.

A side project of Rateadrug is involving pre-med students through the PreMed Prescription Rating and Experience Program (PREPP) where the students help senior citizens become more proactive with their drug intake by reporting their experiences through Rateadrug.com.

The site blurb suggests you use the reviews together with your doctor’s advice and FDA disclosures to achieve the best possible outcome for your (or your loved ones) medical condition. Of course, spammers and corporate shills will be readying themselves to distort the results in their favour, unless preventative measures are put in place. “To prevent spam and ensure a real person is taking each survey we require email verification where the user has to click on a link that we email to them,” Dowd told Sciencebase, “We also flag accounts that submit more than one rating for a specific drug. We’re committed to providing quality, real-user data and will continue to ensure that our results are not skewed by spam or anyone trying to influence the results of a specific drug.”

The site also drops a cookie on to your machine so that it knows how many people log in from a specific computer or IP address. If it looks like there are a lot of ratings for the same drug from the same IP address, they will flag those ratings for manual checking.

I asked Dowd to expand on how they are addressing security and validity issues. “At the moment we receive 20 or fewer ratings per day, and carefully review each one,” adds Dowd, “As the volume increases significantly it will become more difficult to impact and distort results - real ratings should outweigh any attempts to skew ratings. But, we will do our best to prevent this type of tampering.”

“Right now, we have a database of over 7000 drugs, but only about 300 have been rated and reviewed by users/patients,” he adds. Dowd and his colleagues hope that as more people find out about this site, the numbers will grow. “Our intention is to provide real ratings by real people and will do everything we can to assure this as we progress,” he told me.

According to CEO Mark Deuitch, RateADrug is currently hoping to get large numbers of patients to review the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs Lipitor, Lescol, Mevacor, Pravachol, and Zocar, anti-depressants such as Lexapro, Prozac, Effexor, Paxil, Zoloft, and Pristiq, and drugs used to treat insomnia including Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata, Rozerem, and Benzodiazepines.

In related news from the UK’s National Health Service: Drug reference information in the British National Formulary will become a key element of the new NHS Evidence portal due to be launched in April 2009. As a result, responsibility for provision of this information for the NHS will transfer from the Department of Health to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), as part of the development of NHS Evidence.

Rx Reviews Redux